15/06/2026
🇬🇭As a young to***co control advocate, I see Article 19 of the WHO Framework Convention on To***co Control as more than a legal provision. I see it as a tool for justice and accountability.
🇬🇭In Ghana, young people are constantly exposed to new and emerging ni****ne and to***co products, aggressive marketing tactics, and an industry that continues to find ways to attract the next generation of consumers. At the same time, our health system, our families and our communities are left to bear the consequences.
🇬🇭When a young person becomes addicted to ni****ne, develops a to***co-related illness later in life, or when public resources are diverted to treat preventable diseases linked to to***co use, who pays the price? It is often the public, not the industry.
🇬🇭This is why the call by Vision 4 Accelerated Sustainable Development to advance the "Polluter Pays" principle is timely. Activating Article 19 would strengthen discussions around liability and accountability, ensuring that the burden of to***co-related harm does not fall solely on young people, families and taxpayers.
🇬🇭For Ghana's youth, this is about protecting our future. We cannot continue to allow profits to be privatized while the health, social, environmental and economic costs are socialized. If to***co products contribute to disease, addiction, lost productivity and environmental pollution, then accountability must form part of the national conversation.
🇬🇭Young people deserve more than awareness campaigns. We deserve policies that hold industries accountable for the harms associated with their products.
🔥The future generation should not be paying for a problem it did not create.
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